How to escape the google ghetto

How to escape the

(and along the way other geeky sites & tricks to better help your students search the web)

By Chris Yukna

School of MinesTESOL France

I used to love Google

Who wouldn’t 90% of the web was in English.

Google.com was the ESL teacher’s best friend and it did not even translate.

Serp: Search Engine Results Page

They even changed the way we talk… or at least search.

Then it began to change, little by little.

Then Google began to create the mini-Moi s

Therefore here is our Némésis:

You students used to be able to

• Type google.com in the url

• Click on the link on the bottom right of google .fr

• Or simply search with English words

Now they are insidiously redirected to a Google.com

lookalike.

Also in the face of competiton fromWolfram|Alpha: Computational Knowledge EngineGoogle decided to become a Knowledge Engine.

Students are effortly directed to wikipedia.fr for example.

This gives a French worldview on all sorts of topics. Sometimes, it is harmless but quite often it taints the results.

What can you do?

Some alternatives in the quest to findthe original google.com.

• Signing in to google means you can, perhaps, control better the search results

• Going to the search parameters and selectingonly English results

• Typing ncr No Constant Redirect in the url.

At last you have the power & perspective of google.com. And there is normally a memory of the reconfiguration so you and your students should not have to do it again.

Search tips

Even More?

How to put Google in Your Classroom

Some pertinent sites

• Google Logo Generator

• Wordelizer

• If google was a guy

• If google was a guy 2.

• Google Scholar

• Internet archives

• Let’s have some pun.

About the author:Chris Yukna was bornin the antediluvian 50s, had a paper route at 9, sold Christmas cards doorto door at 11, and washeddishes at 14. All theseenriching work experiences convinced him earlyon that he was totally unsuited to working and therefore should become a space cadet, madscientist, or teacher.He has three websites that he tries to update periodically:Science General (fun with science)Business Emporium (Esl business lessons & quizzes)Totally Unorthodox (where he puts everythingelse)

This presentation was originally made for

And has been updated and expanded for TESOL32nd Annual Colloquium